Give Me the Colors Grey
by Limonata
Summary: Connected, semi-chronological drabbles. / He went to PTA meetings, he was in the first row of their plays, and their life was simple. And then more than two decades later, SHE appeared on his doorstep. / COMPLETE.
1. Defeat

_I was rewatching S2 a while back, and then there was a lightbulb moment: What has Thatcher been doing all this time?_

_So I decided to play around with the factors (Thatcher and incomprehensible emotional cruelty) and, well, Give Me the Colors Grey was born. Each chapter is between 300 to 1000 words (so far, as of Part 4) and this is not a place for Thatcher fans. Lots of Thatcher-bashing, from his own POV. I've been told it's cathartic and also enraging, so I hope you... enjoy?_

**

* * *

**

**Part 1**

* * *

Thatcher Grey has three daughters.

The first, the eldest, is descended from surgical royalty, the heir apparent of the supreme Ellis Grey. Ellis had been his wife, his first wife, and sometimes he felt like she was always destined to end up being just _his first wife_ even when they were still married.

Ellis had come upon surgery like its long-lost child, mastering the trade secrets easily and refusing to quit. Soon she had surgery in the palm of her hand, running the show.

Their marriage became a tangled web of whispered promises and hidden glances. She would want to stay late at the hospital, he would wager their child and their marriage in return for her appearance at dinner, just _once_. She would play the selfless doctor, operating for the good of the world; she didn't see _him_ saving any lives, so couldn't _he_ make dinner?

Neither of them was good enough for the other.

Not one for defeat, Ellis took their child from Seattle and Thatcher knew he had lost that round.

Where Ellis was hard planes and narrow angles, the crease of a brow and the flick of a wrist, Susan was warm and cheerful, an overflowing heart and a comforting smile.

She gave him twice what Ellis had. Twice the attention, twice the affection, twice as many daughters. Their household had twice as much love and twice as many occupants, and as the few years he spent with Ellis grew further away, it seemed like his first daughter had been…

Not a figment of his imagination, exactly, but he was beginning to doubt his memory. Had they really been happy? Had she captured his heart so fully? Surely such a thing was impossible; this edition came complete with two more daughters who evoked love that so eclipsed his previous emotions. (After all, if she had so much of his heart, how could there be enough left so that he can love these girls like he does?

No, is the only logical answer. He must be wrong.)

And his first daughter receded into the recesses of his mind, preserved as a very small child in the back of his memory.

'Preserved' is nearly literal. She is a memory drowned in alcohol.

He had been doing fine, once Molly was born, and their life was simple, putt-putt-putting along easily in a gentle, suburban rhythm. Everybody was home for dinner each night and nobody followed a tiny gadget to the other side of the city on Christmas Day. Everything was simple and normal, with his two children and motherly wife. He went to PTA meetings, he was in the first row of their plays—with his wife by his side.

And then more than two decades later, _she _appears on his doorstep.

And everything is shot to hell.

Her round face has grown into an echo of Ellis, her hair longer and her eyes glinting. She stands on his step with her coat wrapped around her, a bag over one shoulder.

She has driven to his house. She has come from work.

These are things Thatcher knows.

And this girl—_his _little girl—is… a _woman _now. Honey-blonde. Ambitious. Willowy. _Surgeon._

A woman living a continuation of Ellis's life.

She stares at him accusatorily, asking questions she knows the answers to, and waiting for him to fail.

Waiting for him to fail _her_.

These Grey women—two of them—waited for him to fail them. And Thatcher is torn between the space/time continuum as he feels himself slipping back to the man he used to be.

The man he used to be takes over, looking into her eyes and seeing the child she had been, warm and light in his arms.

(But then Ellis would take her, out of his arms and into the nanny's, and drive to the hospital. He would go to work and convince himself that there was nothing wrong with this situation.)

But now, all these years later, it is much too late for that. It is too late to change what has happened. She had grown up following Ellis's footsteps; an independent, strong, blonde surgeon, as if he can't have one without reinstating both into his life.

He has nothing left to offer her, his absence speaking enough for both his guilt and his wishes.

She turns from his porch with shattered hope in her eyes.

He stands there for a moment, watching the woman his little girl had become, watching as she strode down his front path to where she has parked down the street. A few seconds later he hears the low rumble of an engine—good heavens, she's old enough to _drive_—and as he stands in the dark, in the damp Seattle weather, he watches her taillights disappear.

Her appearance brings more hurt, more apology. _I don't need anything from you._

Well, that's the kicker, isn't it?

Ellis had been self-sufficient, and he was her tagalong babysitter. She had never needed anything from him.

And now neither does her daughter.

Her car lights fade away down the street and he's blinking after her, remembering a time before she was poisoned against him by her traitorous mother. Back when he was still weak and spineless, the lone caretaker of their child but prohibited from actually raising her.

So he does the only thing he can.

He pretends everything that happened… hasn't. Goes inside, where there are _three _women who need him, where there is a Scrabble game in play and two more daughters—a brunette and a redhead, looking nothing like the surgeons that have stolen his name—waiting for him to take his turn, and he counts himself thankful for second chances.

He suspects he does not deserve one.


	2. Guilt

**Part 2**

* * *

She slips from his porch, but still remains imbedded in his mind. Her very presence is a constant reminder of his failure, one he cannot dislodge or avoid. Somewhere in the Seattle area, she is walking around, with his genes inside her and his mother's hand-knitted rug in her possession.

He had heard she was in Boston and something unclenched. She was gone, and he was probably never going to see her again—what was to stop him moving on?

But. Now.

Now… she's back.

She's here.

And he lives in fear of meeting her somewhere, with his new family. In the grocery store. The bank. In the next car at a stoplight, or at the dentist. Anywhere and everywhere.

He tells himself he doesn't want her to see his new family so she won't get hurt, but it's not the truth.

The truth?

He hates the pang in his chest when her wounded eyes meet his gaze.

He doesn't want to see them again.

*

He's turning his head to find the shortest checkout line when his eyes meet her cool stare.

It feels like his heart stops beating and he darts a look at Molly, flipping through a magazine. She hasn't noticed.

Forgetting subtlety, he spins his head back to look for her, dread flooding him. _Coward_.

But—it's not her, though, he realizes with a sudden burst of relief.

_It's not her. _

His eyes have caught on some fancy journal in the magazine aisle and nonchalantly he shuffles over and picks it up.

His thumb skims across the glossy front cover, featuring her standing next to some cocky-looking guy; the article is equal parts praise and unpronounceable words. _Surgical intern Meredith Grey, daughter of the surgical visionary Ellis Grey,_ says one line, and it nearly takes his breath away.

It's two years later and her name is in _magazines_. The Shepherd Method is famous, and it is happening all over again.

_"Did you see it?" Thatcher held up the publication eagerly. "Did you read?" __"I don't have time to stay here and talk to you about whoever's publishing me this time, Thatch," snapped the woman to whom he was married. "I've got lives to save." __  
_  
"Dad?" calls Molly, both she and the checkout girl looking at him expectantly.

He leaves his daughter in the magazine aisle and does not feel guilty.

*

He sees her again, in the grocery store.

It's really her, this time.

She's standing in front of the milk, a large tote in one hand and a cell in the other, looking…happy.

And yet… like Ellis.

He remembers the look in her eyes as she turned away from him and he shakes the image from his  
head.

*

Then there are a few years he doesn't remember too well.


	3. Pity

**Part 3**

* * *

He can tell she's done this before. Everything is textbook—the concerned face, compassionate tone, the hand-wringing. He hates it. it makes him feel like Grieving Widower #6 as she faces him awkwardly, her eyes full of sympathy.

But—

Not just sympathy.

No.

_Pity_.

It seems wrong, somehow, that _she's _pitying _him_, when just so recently he'd had the upper hand.

(His palm meets her cheek—the first physical contact in more than two decades—and the pity vanishes from her eyes.)

_That's better. _

*

She runs away (now who's the coward?) and leaves him shaking in the lobby. He can feel eyes on him, critical eyes, but he's lost to the words repeating in his head.

The words tell him that it happened. That his wife—his real one, the one who actually liked him—is _dead_.

And it's not surprising, once he thinks about it a minute. Not really. It's certainly fitting.

Of _course _she had to go by surgery. Death by surgery. Oh, sure, they can throw medical terms at him until they're blue in the face but it doesn't change the fact that his eldest daughter watched his wife die and she did fuck-all to stop it from happening.

He wouldn't be surprised if she didn't mind eliminating the woman that took her own mother's place in his life.

He starts after her, vision blurred by salty drops of fear and anger, needing to see her, to see the words, to hear it again. We did everything we could. He needed to hear it to refresh his fury, because everyone knows that fury can be twice as powerful as grief and half as painful to be left alone with. He needs to hear it so that he can direct himself, direct his fear and his sadness, at the responsible parties.

_We did everything we could. _

It's not bad enough that she's a surgeon; no, she has to be a liar as well.

He's starting to think of them as the same thing.


	4. Payback

**Part 4**

* * *

He's not exactly sure what Ellis is doing these days, but he can only assume that she's still the Queen Bee of Boston Gen, while Meredith has returned to reestablish the Grey stronghold on the opposite coast.

(He imagines them working in tandem to encapsulate the entire country.)

It's really, truly like they're the same person, Thatcher muses as he pours himself another drink and stares at the inadvertent family portrait snapped on the fly at some Christmas party at the hospital.

He and Ellis had gone together, but she had left halfway through to check on patients. Meredith had tottered over to Adele, standing just as alone as he was, and seventeen minutes of uncomfortable conversation marked the beginning of a horrible inkling. Ellis had stormed back from the bowels of the hospital, Richard chasing after her, and he was torn between fury and pity toward the man his wife was preying upon.

No, the photo in his hand doesn't lie. It's Meredith, beaming near-toothlessly up at Adele behind the lens, Richard and Ellis in the background deep in conversation. Thatcher himself is hovering at the buffet table, scratching his head.  
_  
__Scratching his head. _

Jesus.

What the camera doesn't entirely capture is that the photo was taken during the three weeks that Meredith had demanded to wear only scrubs, and Adele had created a tiny set for her and an even tinier set for that ridiculous beloved doll of hers, Surgery Susan or something.

Or that her hair, preserved in black and white but actually a mid-blonde, was the exact same color as Ellis's had been.

Or that even though she could have been barely more than three years old, she already knew the hospital hallways better than she knew their own house. She could find her way from the tunnels to the north-east nurses' station on the fifth floor, nearly within the time that it took for him to find her juicebox.

No.

She's Ellis's child.

*

Two drinks later he has reached a crucial revelation: payback.

This is all payback. Payback for going to her. Payback for expecting her to understand love, something more than just surgical advantages and on-call room quickies.

(Which, according to a loudmouthed nurse near Molly's room, was a concept she had certainly become familiar with.)

But greater than that, it's payback for his attempt to move on, away from the stranglehold of Ellis and her…

Spawn.

Because really, they are so similar. It's almost like one of those spontaneous-regendation—geration—regenerd—whatsits.

They are both strong.

Ambitious.

Self-assured.

They have that ever-so-slightly condescending way of speaking to him, like he's a misbehaving puppy or a naughty child.

Their first priority is surgery, surgery, surgery.

If the discovery of her impending arrival wasn't six weeks after the only sex they'd had all year, he'd have started looking into that sponantious regner-thing.


	5. Accident

_I'm getting better at keeping these short. :P _

* * *

**Part 5**

* * *

It might seem weird that he knew she is a surgeon, that first night she showed up. When he hadn't seen her for twenty years, give or take, and at the time of last sighting, she had been snuggled in front of the Saturday morning cartoons in a pink blanket and footie pajamas.

So. He can see how it might have seemed weird.

But.

In truth?

It wasn't.

*

Okay, so maybe he lied. Maybe it is a little weird. He's not exactly sure. But it's a father's right to keep an eye on his daughter, even when his daughter is the spawn of a cold-blooded robot.

It was an accident, actually; one of his students sent a newspaper clipping.

_Mark Levinsky, 20, was awarded runner-up to the Snooty McSnootyname Tons of Money for Med School Scholarship Prize, awarded yearly to young kids with big brains. Mr. Levinsky is the second-youngest winner of this prize, kindly donated by the McSnooty family in exchange for lots of press and smiley photos with grateful newly-kinda-rich kids. The youngest McSnooty awardee—and this year's winner—is Meredith Grey, whose mother is fantastically talented and spectacularly bitchy._

Okay, he paraphrased a little.

But from then on, he had a university publication to keep watch of.

He subscribed.

*

And now the Snooty McSnootys must be just_ so _disappointed, now that their prodigy ended up killing her father's wife and delivering her half-sister's baby alongside the wife of the attending she's screwing.

The amber liquid trickles into the glass as he exhales with a smirk.

It's all just so…

(What's the word?)

Ah.

Right.

_Greek._


	6. Memories

This one's a teeny bit longer for you guys. I know some of you would prefer they be longer, but I'm trying a drabble thing. So. I guess maybe you could just read a whole bunch at once? :)

Also, for those who were asking about my LiveJournal, nope, you don't have to have an account to comment. ;)

And _also_, I'm sorry for the delay; my computer's in the repair place and I just canNOT write pen/paper. IDK why, but I can't. So I haven't been able to write at all. :(

* * *

**Part 6**

* * *

The liquor finishes and the memories begin.

Recurring, they are; flashes of ash-blonde and apricot red, baby hands and haunting grey eyes. He debates getting up to dig out the _spare_ spare bottle, from the shoebox on the top shelf of the closet.

Something in his mind says this will be a bad idea, but it's faraway and not very convincing. Or at least, not as convincing as the heavy air around him, thick with leftover death and depression.

He stubs his toe against the step as he lurches upwards. Two, three, four, fi—

Susan hates when he lands hard on this step, the squeaky one. She says it disturbs her sleep, but he always figures that she's the housewife, after all—can't she get it fixed, if it bothers her so much?

His burgeoning anger is cut off at the knees by the shoulder bag at the top of the staircase. Susan hadn't been expecting much more than a quick visit when she went to the hospital, and had packed accordingly.

He swipes the bag into the hand not holding himself up, stumbling with a groan. The bedroom – that's why, he realizes. This is what his alcohol-saturated brain wanted to protect him from.

Dumping the cloth onto the bed, he shuffles toward the closet in the corner.

There. Top shelf.

Not confident in his ability to extract the bottle from the box without sitting down or dropping something, he returns to the couch to retrieve his prize.

The couch cushions receive him gently, and he pries the lid up with clumsy fingers.

And _that's _when it hits him.

*

There she is.

Her face is still round, her baby hair dark; not yet lightened to the spun-gold color it would settle on. Her eyes, though.

Her eyes are the most different.

They're almost green, sparkling and happy, and he stares at her. She looks a little like Lexie did as a child, her smile mischievous and clever. It pains him that his other daughter couldn't escape her shadow.

She's about a year and a half, back when everything was fine. Ellis was—

No.

He's not going to go there.

With a growl, he slams the lid back on the box, fingers already searching for his glass.

But then he remembers.

He does not want to see her again. But he desperately needs the alcohol she guards.

Dammit.

Why is she always in the way?


	7. Downfall

There's probably going to be either 10 or 12 parts to this. Thanks to all those who are reading, especially reviewers but also to the **many **lurkers. ;)

I posted this a few days ago at my livejournal, but then I went away for the weekend... and forgot to post here. D: I'm sorry!

* * *

**Part 7**

* * *

(Someone—Lexie, or Molly; he isn't sure—finds him on the couch.)

No. It must be Molly. Lexie isn't here.

(There's an arm around him, under him, wrapped. Supportive. A scent wraps around him with it, light and floral and feminine, so he knows it's one of his—two—girls.)

But wait. Lexie _is _here now.

(He doesn't want support. He's just so fucking sick of these strong women he's accidentally surrounded himself with, treating him as if he can't feed himself or decide when to go to bed. It's _his_ goddamn life, isn't it?)

_Yes_ is the only answer. It _is _his life.

(His daughter is here, living with him, as if it's fifteen years ago and nothing has changed. She sleeps in her old room, says goodnight when she goes to bed, kisses his cheek and calls him _Daddy_.

But the word _Mommy _no longer passes her lips, and he knows there is one inescapable fact that shatters their comforting illusion.)

She's here because of What Happened.

(He shrugs out from underneath the arm and a soft sigh follows him as he lurches down the hallway. Was there always a wall there?

_Great_.

Not only is his wife dead and his daughter a murderer, but now someone's renovating his home without fucking telling him.)

Dammit. His wife is dead. Which means… he remembers what happened.

His fingers clutch reflexively around a bottle that is no longer present.

(Next time he won't let himself be found so soon.)

*

Lexie tells him she's going to work at Seattle Grace, and suddenly he can't remember why this moving-back-to-Seattle thing didn't seem like a horrible idea before.

He had kept tabs on the hospital. Married to one of its top surgeons, he has friends and contacts there; has had dinner with Patricia and known Debbie since she'd started as a wide-eyed new nurse.

She sets off early that morning, before he wakes. She's so excited, and he is excited for her.

Really.

He is.

There's a sense of protectiveness, too. Like once more she's six years old, going off to school, and he wants to protect her from the bullies who will make her feel small.

He never felt that way about Meredith, he realizes. He's always considered her able to protect herself, now, since she's grown up.

He never got to see her off to school.

*

She comes home guarded, sorrow peeking through the cracks of her smile.

(Thirty, thirty-five years ago, fiery auburn tresses arrived through a different door. She smiled a little, a smile of bloodlust and superiority.)

He looks at his elder daughter, her dark hair bouncing around her shoulders as she starts making breakfast. He studies her warily.

It will be the beginning of her downfall.


	8. Revolution

**A/N: **The numbers tell me this is not as wildly unpopular as it seems, so for all you lurkers, here's part eight. I would love to hear from you, as always. :)

* * *

**Part 8**

* * *

Lexie tells him things about her new job. Lots of things, actually. It sounds like Lexie might be a little starry-eyed. The stories she relates are shining examples of Meredith The Surgeon. How wonderful she is as a doctor. Her intuition, her bedside manner, her innate knowledge of the human body and hofw it works. The ease with which she reads symptoms, her patience with patients.

Each word pierces him like an arrow:

None of these are things inherited from him.

*

Days pass. He drinks.

Weeks pass. He stops.

Months pass, and anniversaries arrive, and he is back down the rabbit hole.

_Years _go by.

A full revolution.

Something has to change.

*

Lexie is all gasps and tearful snuffles and wide eyes.

Meredith watches uncomfortably.

He can see her out of the corner of his eye as Lexie's arms wrap around him.

She doled out forgiveness, and her job here is done.

Maybe now there is not so much anger between them, but there is still not much else instead.

*

And then it happens.

Even though he stopped, it seems he was too late.

Now he's entrapped in a little room, thin blankets across his legs and machines humming around him. He hears _alcoholism _and _liver transplant _and _suitable donor _and all he can take in is that suddenly, though she does not need him, he needs her.

His eldest daughter.

And he does not want to need her, but he does.

*

The first time they re-met, outside his house in the dark night with the leaves rustling amicably above them—he had been the winner.

It was not truly a competition, but he had been the winner.

She was meek and small, a slip of a thing wrapped up and windblown. He had been solid, backed by his house, holding the answers she sought.

Yes.

He had been the winner.

*

This time it's her.

She's the winner.

She won.

He's now the weak dying old man and she's the healthy young woman who gives her liver away. Selfless. Kind. Not expecting—not _wanting_—a shred in return.

In fact, preferring that she gets not even an audience with the recipient. He can sense her hesitation.

The transfer takes place by her people on her turf, and afterwards, by some sick twist of fate, he's cohabiting in post-op with a patient under her care.

Distantly, he wonders if it's normal to feel this way. This uncertain, this uncomfortable, this un_everything_. The opposite of what fatherhood should be.

He decides, pettily, that he doesn't care.

*

They let her out before they release him, and she is constantly coming by the room.

Not for him, of course. Not to see him, not to talk to him.

Each time, though, she is pleasant and polite, introducing herself as Dr. Grey as she checks on the other man.

Thatcher watches as the other man's wife brings their daughters by, surrounding him with handmade get-well cards and cheery bunches of flowers.

He looks across at Lexie, pale and exhausted as she perches opposite his bed for a five-minute chat before she gets paged away, and he wonders where he went wrong.

A better question might be where he went right.


	9. Disinterest

**A/N:** THIS IS POSSIBLY AN UPDATING RECORD. :D I've pretty much finished this little venture; I just need to edit it all together. Which is going well, evidently. ;) Now if I could only resuscitate my fic fairy and get LM a final three chapters, that would be great...

Also, thanks to the reviewers and the shy PMers and even the many many many lurkers. The numbers prove that even though people don't tend to review short things, you ARE reading, so I'm glad you're enjoying so far. :) Although, you know, saying hi wouldn't hurt. ;P

* * *

**Part 9**

* * *

Now her liver is inside him, and instead of feeling better, he feels worse.

She insists she did it for Lexie, for Molly. For their relationships with him, for the father he was to his other daughters.

(He used to think of them as his _better_ daughters. The ones that didn't kill the woman he loves.

Now he isn't sure.

After all, she may have let Susan die, yes, but she did just save _him._)

She insists—albeit without explicitly stating so—that she has no part in this, no personal interest. That he's just the guy who poured her cereal.

She seems entirely unaffected.

The worst part is, he knows it's not just an act.

*

Whenever she asks about him, it's about his incision, about his heart rate or blood pressure or something, about his liver. _Their _liver.

Never about _him._

(Goddammit.)

*

He had hoped, stupidly, that she would realize he could die, and that her reaction to this news would be something other than nonchalant disinterest.

But—he knows now that she has _always _known he could die. Would die. _Will _die, still. After all, she is a _surgeon_. (It's nearly a dirty word, to him.)

She stares down death every day of her life.

And additionally, she's read his chart; knows more about his condition than he does.

_I'm just doing this for Lexie, _she clarifies as she strolls in, only slightly gingerly, after the surgery. She looks completely at home in the sterile hospital environment—exchanging pleasantries with the nurses and other doctors, chatting and laughing at something said by some guy walking next to her.

Thatcher can't see him or hear him, but he's pretty sure it's one of her bosses, and well, that's just perfect. She's an attending-chaser just like her mother.

Stopping at the foot of his bed, she just flips open his chart, glancing at the seemingly-incomprehensible medical garble and instantly decoding it.

He knows exactly why this pisses him off.

*

The reason is this.

He is the only one who can answer her questions.

_How are you feeling? _

_Any pain at the incision site? _

He is the one with answers. The _only _one who can answer those questions. She needs them and he has them, and it feels… it feels like she needs him. Even just a little, for _yes/no_ questions and a cursory prod at his abdomen.

Except when she reads his fucking chart.

Then it's like he's not even in the room at all.

*

She says that he's just the guy who poured her cereal, and he believes her.

She does not need him.

But she is willing to have him need her.

He's not sure what this says about her.

*

To be honest, she perplexes him.

He was removed from her life abruptly. Prematurely. A healthy tooth, extracted in its prime. His absence left in her life a hole, a gaping space that she tried to fill but never quite succeeded.

Or…

Or was it the other way around?


	10. Satisfaction

I know a lot of people want these to be longer, and I'm really sorry. It started out as an exercise in drabbledom and became the only way you'd ever get anything from me, now that Bones has exploded my brain cells. :'( I'm a little out of practice at long things now, and it's a time commitment I just can't make at the moment. Not to mention I think my Fic Fairy has TEMPORARILY given up the ghost on the longer works, *ahemLoveMeansahem*, which makes me feel so bad, you guys, because you're so patient. :) Thanks for everyone who's added to the story and/or me to their alerts (many many), PMed or favorited (much less many, but I love you anyway) ;P Your support is appreciated. This one's over 500, just for you. :)

**Please note **- we're probably going into slightly AU territory, now. Also, the formatting's being a little uncooperative in that all my separators have disappeared. :( I can't really fix much because the earlier chapters are gone from my "archive" and I'm so anal-retentive that I'd rather them all be wrong than be inconsistent :P, so if you want something with a better layout, try the LJ link at my profile. It's a lot easier to read, IMHO at least, because this will interfere with the pacing. ;)

* * *

**Part 10 - two left!**

* * *

His stitches are angry and raw, the neat line across his abdomen evidence of where they removed the bad from him and replaced it with good. Replaced with good from _her_, his daughter.

Eventually the skin no longer need to be held shut quite so carefully, and then not at all. When they wheel him to the door, the trip of humiliation passes her at a nurses' station, an elbow braced against the desk, marking in a chart.

He leaves, and she stays. He does not know that she waits until he has passed before her gaze tracks after him to where Molly brings the car around to pick him up.

His is one more life she has saved, one more family kept together with careful stitches and surgical gauze.

_Time heals all wounds_, they say.

In this case, at least, it's true.

A few years after the transplant, when Molly touches his hand to her abdomen and tells him about his imminent grandson, he feels… _gratitude_ to her, his firstborn, for saving his life.

And yet he is struck by the notion that this is not how it's meant to go.

(You know when you give someone a present, for Christmas or their birthday or something, and then a few years later they—probably accidentally—give it _back to you?_

Has that ever happened to you?

He feels a little like that.)

He comes by the hospital occasionally. The first time it was innocent; some paperwork about Susan unearthed by the merger's new filing systems, the second is… he didn't know exactly why. It was the anniversary of Susan's first breath—for real, this time—and somehow it's fitting to return to where she took her last.

The time after that was because Molly had gone there to fix Laura's leg; the mischievous five-year-old had left the Fall Fair with a hairline souvenir. Mother and daughter had returned, bearing tales of cotton candy and x-rays and pretty blonde surgeoners.

His heart pangs, and he does not know why.

Each time, he looks for her.

Not because he wants to see _her_.

He ducks around corners when he sees her coming. It's always so long between visits that he can tell something is different: her dark hair is straighter, shorter, lighter, longer.

There's a smile on his face when he finds her, a small one. He likes seeing her at work. Though a small part of him hates, with passionate, ungrounded, undying hate, that she's a surgeon, the rest of him is—well, satisfied.

When he's not searching the hospital for his middle daughter—he's thought of her as his 'older' for so long—he is actively avoiding his actual older daughter.

He's fairly sure that if he were to feel pride for her, she would take it as a personal offense. She would tell him he has no right to pride, to satisfaction. She would tell him – politely, as if he was asking directions – that she has raised herself, that he relinquished his place in her life.

It hurts.

She's right.

* * *

Please let me know what you think of the formatting - should I reupload and edit? Did it affect you? Can you tell I'm just looking for some feedback about _anything_, since I have no idea how most of the readers are feeling? ;)


	11. Startled

I'm on medication since I can barely move my neck (fun times), and maybe that has something to do with my update ratio. ;)

Excuse the hideous separators. *wails* I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING TO DESERVE THIS. :'(

And enjoy! Let me know how the progression is going, k? And thanks to the few reviewers and the tons of lurkers, whose numbers surprise even little old me. :')

* * *

**Part 11**

* * *

He sees her only one time.

One visit.

Molly is upstairs with her new baby, and he has gone for pudding cups.

_Pudding._

Such triviality.

He is still thrilling with the sight of his first grandson, unable to stop staring at the freshly-snapped image on the phone he has no idea how to use.

It has been three hours since he should have had breakfast, and the cafeteria is full of exhausted, scrub-clad hospital staff on break.

And that is when he sees.

-.-.-

She said the door was open, after the surgery. She said that if they got through it, the door was open.

He knew that.

He knew it was open.

But he could not go through.

-.-.-

Now, standing with a tray of pale, unappetizing pumpkin soup and two pudding cups to take back upstairs, he catches a glimpse of golden hair, about twenty feet away.

The sight of the apple-cheeked toddler floods him with memories of his own daughter's childhood, back when everything was simple. The little girl is gorgeous, wavy honey tresses tumbling freely over her shoulders. She's walking into the cafeteria with a couple he's never seen before, and he feels his lungs relax as his brain registers that this is just a coincidence.

-.-.-

As he attempts to digest the concoction disguised as soup, he finds his gaze straying back to the girl. Her father is holding her hand, while her mother is carrying a tray. They walk between tables, from behind to in front of him, and he feels himself almost smile as he recalls the events of thirty-odd years ago.

The family arrives at their destination, a booth table already occupied by other workers, and the child scrambles up next to—

And that is when his heart catches.

-.-.-

He had been wrong. The first couple was not her parents.

He can tell that immediately from the way she snuggles between the other couple, facing toward him.

He knows it's her.

The intervening two years are evident. Her hair is shorter, cropped to shoulder-length. Her smile is wider, more ready. She seems more tired, more experienced, more grown up.

She does not notice him.

-.-.-

It could only be a maximum of ten minutes before their meal is over, one of the doctors being paged away. Her partner, judging by the only slightly too-long kiss they exchange as he leaves.

It is the attending she had been with, all those years ago.

The other two are summoned not long after, and then there is nobody left between them.

It was only a matter of time before she saw him.

-.-.-

In the end, it took another four minutes.

The lonely man stopped staring at the busy woman. People sat between them and he lost sight of her. He went back to his soup and the photo in his hand.

The woman gathered her things and stood.

It's then that she sees him.

-.-.-

When he looks back to the food line and debates the potentially-fatal repercussions of another bowl of chalky soup, their eyes meet.

She is startled.

Not as much as he is.

-.-.-

He had thought that Molly's new baby, fawned over upstairs, was his second grandchild.

Like so many other times, he was wrong.

A grandchild from her, too.

She never fails to surprise him.

-.-.-

The girl, a few years old, is tugging at her scrubs. There is a baby on her hip, too, about a year old. Had probably been in a carrier on the seat. Dark hair, big blue eyes, one hand fisted in the neck of her scrub top.

She clips gadgets one-handedly back to her waist, trying to not look over at him.

When she turns to push the others' chairs in, he notices the strain at her scrubs, the angle of the baby's foot against the terrain of her belly.

Grandchildren, then.

Very, _very_ plural.


	12. Pride

I nearly had enough to go to 15 with this, but I thought _no, people have been bugging me for longer chapters... _so. You win. ;) 1073 words, in one chapter. In a story that's intended to be drabblish. I GIVE UP ALREADY.

And to _macsmitty_, who wrote that Thatcher really has no claim on grandfatherdom to Mer's kids, it cracks me up how it's like you KNEW what was coming. :P

* * *

**Part 12**

* * *

He doesn't know how to react to this.

Her turf. Her family. Her people.

The girl's hand was held in hers as they approached. When she was level with him, she stopped.

Turned.

Spoke.

"You never called."

He clutches at straws, knowing his words are weak even as they exit his mouth. "You didn't either."

She retorts immediately. "I did the whole liver thing," she counters. "I'm pretty sure that's called the first move. What are you even doing here?"

He does not know what to say.

So, as we all must do when faced with no other option, he tells her the truth.

-.-.-

She blinks as it comes out, the reason he has suddenly reappeared in her territory. A few sentences are not nearly good enough.

But after years of radio silence, there's no easy place to start.

-.-.-

The little girl is tugging on her hand, twirling and singing softly as she spins behind Meredith, holding his daughter's fingers as an anchor. She hasn't noticed him.

"What's that?" Meredith asks finally.

The phone. Of course.

He holds it up. "First grandson," and there is no keeping the pride out of his voice.

She looks at him for a moment, a sad smile on her face.

"Yes."

-.-.-

For a minute, it doesn't click.

It takes him a minute to figure out what she means.

Both of her children are girls, and Molly is still the trailblazer.

-.-.-

He nods uncomfortably for a moment, glancing down at the little girl. Meredith tugs gently on her arm to cease her spinning and when she notices Thatcher, she ducks behind her mother's leg.

"Hi," Thatcher says softly, and she buries her face in her mother's thigh, peeking around at him.

Meredith does not suggest the little girl should say hello.

"How old?" he inquires.

"She's three," Meredith tells him, glancing tenderly at the little girl, "and he's seventeen months."

-.-.-

He.

_He. _

The baby on her hip is a _he._

Thatcher's fingers tighten reflexively around the phone.

-.-.-

"So—so then—" he stammers.

Her eyes are unreadable. A hint of… sympathy? Pity, perhaps.

"Congratulations on your first grandson," she offers sincerely.

"But—"

She shakes her head slightly, adjusting the almost-toddler on her front. They've been standing still for a comically long time.

She checks her watch and sighs as if he has been purposefully disobedient. "If you need to keep talking about this, you're gonna have to walk with me."

-.-.-

She releases the girl's hand as they near the elevator. "Can I push the button?" his daughter's daughter asks eagerly.

He watches as his daughter shakes her head sternly. "What do we say?"

"_Pleeeeease_, Mommy? Please, Mommy, _may_ I push the button?"

"Yeah, baby," Meredith agrees with a smile, stroking her daughter's honey-blonde hair. "You may."

-.-.-

"You… you have kids."

"Yes."

"You have a son."

"Yes."

"Then… then, upstairs, Molly's, he isn't…"

She shakes her head. "No no, he is. He _is_ your first grandson. Don't take that away from him."

-.-.-

His face must betray his bafflement because she elaborates with a sigh. "Let me put it this way," she begins, angling her body so he can see her son's face. "Do you feel anything for this child?"

-.-.-

The baby is sleeping now, breathing deeply in and out, but he looks unknown. The girl he can somewhat identify with, but this boy has dark hair and unfamiliar features.

"No."

She holds up the phone. "How about this one?"

Molly's son is still red and scrawny, round-faced and mid-wail. He looks like Eric, and not one Grey feature can be seen so early.

And yet even the merest thought of this squalling baby tugs at Thatcher's heart.

-.-.-

She looks as if he has just proven something.

-.-.-

She returns the phone to him, pressing it back into his hand and once more clasping the hand of her daughter.

"My children are not your grandchildren, Thatcher," she says gently, with a note of finality that hits him square in the gut. "And somehow—I don't know exactly how, but—" She chews her lip contemplatively. "I have the feeling that… you could be my father, if you wanted, but I am not your daughter."

-.-.-

She turns back to face the front of the elevator, which is taking a ridiculously long time. He considers just getting out at the nearest floor.

"Sorry," she apologizes lamely. "They're doing construction or something. Richard… well, let's say, we have a fine surgical robot."

"How _is _the chief?" Thatcher asks uncertainly, unsure if he really wants to hear the answer.

-.-.-

They get out of the elevator—all four of them—and Thatcher has no idea what is going on.

Meredith smiles, a little, understanding this. "Richard retired," she tells him. "A few years ago. My husband is the chief now."

She checks her watch again. "I've gotta get back to work," she mentions finally.

-.-.-

He nods, slowly. Small talk. He can do small talk. (They keep following signs to **DAYCARE **and Thatcher is beginning to figure out their destination.)

"You know…" His mind races to come up with the end of the sentence. "They say raising boys is completely different to girls," is what he settles on, lamely.

She shrugs. There's a slight smile around the corners of her mouth. And once again, he is deferring to her expertise.

He finds that this time, he doesn't mind it so much.

"I… guess?" she says finally.

He nods. It's a start.

-.-.-

After two minutes and forty-three seconds, she gets paged.

"Busy?" he questions pointlessly.

"It's the pit. It's the D-e-a-d B-a-b-y Bar bike race."

His brow furrows. "Why would someone name—"

She smiles ruefully. "The better part of a decade, and I still have no idea."

There's a pause. She shifts the boy on her hip, the little girl tugging at her fingers with a cry of "Mama!" and he blinks, the reality of the situation fully revealed to him.

She is a surgeon, a wife, a mother. She has four times the education he does and probably a fraction as much debt. She looks more tired than he does, more happy than he does, and okay, right now she looks a little more uncomfortable than he does.

But maybe it's not a competition. Maybe what he's feeling right now is… pride.

After all, he used to pour her cereal.

* * *

SO MANY thanks to all the lurkers, and the reviewers, and everyone who read this and encouraged my insanity.

I tend to write things that people don't review much, which I guess doesn't _really _bug me 'cause I know you're reading it. ;) But how 'bout one more, for old times' sake? (I _did _give you all a long chapter, after all. It's the least you could do. ;P)


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